My son (18) wanted to watch bladerunner, but which bladerunner, dad? Well, at my disposal, there’s the Blueray directors cut. There’s the HBO Max Bladerunner (1984) and there’s my apple tv purchased Bladerunner (the final cut, 2007).
Somehow we opted for the HBO Max 1984 Bladerunner and it was going great until the narration turned up (about a couple of minutes in) and … look, it’s been a LONG time since I watched bladerunner and an even longer time since I watched it with the heavy handed voice over – and man alive that thing has not aged well, we both burst out laughing it was just dripping in cliche.
So we went to the apple tv version, which was much better. Really enjoyed it. Couple of things I think on reflection – firstly, Scott does this thing that camera lights can do which is make a normal eye reflect red – and there’s a LOT of that going on. So much so, it’s clearly a choice and not one I registered before. Now, I’m not 100% sure, but I suspect he only does it on the eyes of replicants.
Second thought, is he/ is he not a replicant, I think is beside the point, what I took away is that the replicants – with their implanted memories and limited lifespans – are just a mirror reflection of humans, I think you can watch it and think no what’s being said is that Deckard is clearly human, but he so parallels what a replicant is/does that it hardly matters.
It’s also pretty economical, and just gets on with things. No confusion, quite a limited amount of dialogue, just solid visual storytelling. Harrison Ford remains the greatest actor at getting an ass whooping yet somehow surviving.
I rewatched the Bladerunner 2049 and as much as I love the big swatches of colour on screen it felt suprisingly clean and clinical compared to bladerunner. Much in the way that I tried watching the Mandelorian film and was struck with how plastic it all felt compared to the original star wars.
And I think a final thought, after watching some of the deleted scenes (with their voice overs – including an even worse voice over in that first appearance of deckard) this could’ve been a terrible terrible film. It’s all there in the edit. Too much background (you know Deckard was married, right? Holden his replacement after he retired? All there, announced to you early on to save confusion)
The say you make a film three times, once in the writing, once in the filming and once in the edit, and this has been edited a number of times at this point. I think it says to me if you do something and it’s not perfect, keep chopping away at it and maybe you’ll get there.
